'I am.'
'There is no need. Here are quite witnesses enough.'
'No. No one knows what I do,' she said, with face as hard set as marble.
'Has Felix spoken to you?' he said, understanding better.
'Only what you heard. That was enough.'
'It is a right purpose, Angela,' he said, kindly: 'but really you need not expose yourself to this. We can quite exonerate the others by showing that our boat swung round at the last moment, and that is all that signifies. We neither saw nor knew why.'
'And I did,' said Angela.
To check her was plainly impossible. There was the sort of seared look of misery about her face which had before struck Cherry, as if she were perfectly indifferent what might happen to her, and hardly heard what was said; and Clement could only make a gesture indicating that he had no choice, when he met the astonished glances of the others.
The Rood was almost as old as the Priory itself, and the inquest was held in a curious old pannelled room. The other boat's crew had brought an attorney to watch the proceedings, evidently anticipating that undue blame would be imputed to them, to the damage of their character even if nothing more came of it.
The first to tell his story was the Reverend Edward Clement Underwood, who merely explained the manner in which they were seated, the sudden challenge from the six-oar, and how just as he had thought the boat clear, he had felt whirled round in the eddy, the boat was struck in the stern, and went down. His brother Theodore was instantly taken out; Francis Yates, the other sufferer, not till the last, he could not say how long.